Quent Cordair Fine Art

Well, I’d hoped that I could get a slightly better photo of the classical guitar, but I got very dark, overcast clouds instead and this is the best my artificial lighting could achieve, I’m afraid.  At least you can see the different color of blue I’ve used in his shirt, and how its higher intensity is meant to seize more attention than the blue areas around it.

There’s not a lot I can say about the process of painting the shirt that you probably haven’t heard already, but I can probably add that I like the idea of the shirt giving him a more casual look.  At other times I might have given him a more formal sort of attire, to give a sense of professionalism to him, but in this case I want his precise nature to seem purely natural; the by-product of his mindset and state of being.  It doesn’t really change the theme, but it adds just a slight shade of Z-axis dimension to it that I like.

Here comes the clutch moment of the painting.  I need the figure’s expression to show both concentration and pleased, subtle confidence.  Most of this can be communicated in the eyes and mouth, since he is more or less completely at rest and has no reason to have a strong expression on his face.  Of course, I also like the idea of having him wearing glasses, since glasses are a very clear and obvious reiteration of the theme of precision.  This means that his eyes will be somewhat obscured through the lenses, and I’m taking advantage of the opportunity to include a mild distortion of his face through them, which is a fun optical effect to add a little interest.

The face, for working purposes, I treat as being divided into sections.  The first is his forehead, bordered by his hair and the top of the frames of his glasses.  The second is his glasses and eyes.  And the third is everything under his glasses, including his nose and mouth.  Thinking about approaching the face in this way is not only practical, allowing me to stop work before the whole face is finished if I happen to see the “Damon Alert” symbol suddenly being projected onto the clouds from city hall and have to hurry away, but also helps reduce the daunting feeling of having to get the whole face and expression just right in one fell swoop.

I more or less put in the basic dark areas first, add the midtones, and then zap the lighter parts of the face in last, with the knowledge that I’ll be going back over later with some semi-opaque glaze work to help blend things more smoothly and do some final, more subtle shaping of the features.  I also make sure that the darkest tones of the eyes seen through the lenses are a little lighter than they would be normally, to help with that feeling that there is something between us and them, kind of like a very mild filter.  The effect is subtle, but I think it helps.

My next task is to put in the dark region marked by the figure’s trousers, which serves as a reference point for work on the figure and guitar by establishing the darkest darks that will be present in the painting.  Even before this area is officially completed, just getting in the general darks helps me to control the contrast I use in the central area of the figure and guitar.  In this way, the lower left quadrant is a sort of anchor for the painting.

Hair often presents a slight amount of complexity in our far-to-near approach to painting the elements in the work, because while much of the hair overlaps the face, some of it also ends up being “behind” it, as in the case of the neck or ear, etc.  If I paint hair on top of an unpainted skin area, and that hair dries before I can start the flesh underneath it, the result can be an awkward hard line that can detract from the visual harmony of the painting.  To prevent this, I mix a simple, general flesh tone and paint in the areas of flesh that make contact with the hair.  This allows me to get an even blend, avoid hard lines, and also come right back on top of these unfinished flesh areas when I start on the face properly.

The arms and neck I’m able to get in, but the face will have to wait for another day, which is why this bordering technique is useful.  For the exact same reason, I also paint in the part of the black glasses frame that goes under the hair.  For good measure, I also quickly block in the face of the guitar in preparation for putting a wood grain pattern on top of it later.

Okay, now that we have the upper left and upper right quadrants more or less completed, it’s time to do the same with the next quadrant in line in the clockwise progression. Why clockwise, you may be asking? Well, coincidence more than anything, actually. I am, if you’ll remember, painting the elements from far to near, and the buildings in the upper left just happen to be further away than the wall in the upper right, which just happens to be further away from us than the wine bottle, etc.

Instead of posting just one sudden *poof* image of the lower right quadrant being finished, I’ve included progress shots of the tiles and bottle as they are completed. The tile design I crafted up with the primary goal of continuing the color scheme started in the buildings as it fits into the general composition that I mentioned in my last post. I also wanted something that was a little “busy”, to help balance the details present in the buildings, as opposed to the very simple field presented by the plain wall in the upper right quadrant. The only real trick with the tiles is making them appear three dimensional and shiny. That’s not too hard when you’re painting something that’s right in front of you, but it’s a little more difficult when you have to make it all up on the spot. This was another consideration while I was coming up with the tile design. I wanted it to be somewhat busy, but not too frighteningly difficult.

The fun part about the bottle and glass is that the tiles and wall are showing through the bottle, which is in turn showing through the glass. So the visual trick presented there is a sort of multiple distortion through colored and curved glass. A similar effect is planned for the figure where his left eye is distorted through the lens of his glasses, as you will see for yourself soon enough.

I should probably explain the context of these elements in the corner before I tie this step up. The decorative tile pattern should be obvious enough, given the theme of “precision”. Some may at first think that an apple has no significance in regards to the theme, but if you’ve studied the long history of agriculture at all, you know that the big, juicy, flawless apple that you take for granted in the super market is actually the product of centuries of deliberate human selection, not to mention agricultural technological developments. When I’ve been on archaeological surveys in the field in the past, I’ve discovered ancient corn cobs that had only six kernels around their circumference. And while those cobs were already a product of hundreds of years of human selective farming, they were still a long way from our modern, very robust corn cobs. Anyone who has discovered wild raspberries or strawberries in the mountains knows how much they differ from their domestic cousins who have been cultivated under the watchful eyes of humans for so long. With this in mind, the wine is a further refinement of the already very careful and precise process that gave us the humble modern grape. Fans of fine wines know very well how spectacularly precise that process can be, and how small deviations in the process can yield profound differences in the resulting product. And of course, a factory produced wine glass that is identical to hundreds and thousands of other glasses coming down the same assembly line is only possible by an amazing degree of precision in the technology and machines used to produce them.

So although the elements in this corner are all meant to look very nice, they are also deliberate reiterations of the general theme and are meant also to give that simple act of the figure tuning his guitar that much more gravity.

Now that I’ve got one quadrant of the picture to basic completion, I thought I’d include a visual breakdown of my overall composition.

Attached is an image that illustrates the composition I’m working with, in abstract form. As I finish more of the painting, you should be able to see it fit in generally with this abstract design. If I were an abstract painter, my painting wouldn’t need to go any further than this simple design, and the composition would be essentially the same as my finished realistic one. Of course, the content and theme would then be lost, and my friend, Josh Petty, would probably be a lot less happy with the results of his modeling for me.

Notice that the composition is, for the most part, divided into quadrants. Notice also that visual flow is going to be provided by different devices: color, similarity of form, and the diagonal cross cutting of an actual object within the painting (the guitar neck).

The upper left quadrant (the buildings) and the lower right quadrant (the wine bottle and glass) are connected visually by sharing elements of color, complexity (you’ll have to wait to see the lower quadrant), and a strong vertical use of line and form. Flow between these areas is going to be created by use of the color blue, which will join them together. The other two quadrants provide balance to the first two by being simple (no complex details), and by lacking any blue color.

These areas–the upper right and lower left–are in balance with each other not by being similar in value, but in being opposite; dark versus light. The dark bottom area helps to anchor the composition and create more visual balance, but will hopefully not be too heavy in contrast to the very light quadrant opposite it. Flow between these two quadrants will be created by the neck of the guitar, which will traverse the distance between them.

I’ve also included a second image, which shows the upper right quadrant, which is an Italianate sort of textured, stucco wall. This will fall into place when I get the decorative tiles on the wall’s base done, as well as the reddish Spanish tiles on the floor. That, combined with the wine and glass, are meant to go hand in had with the sort of modern version of an Italian Renaissance visual theme, which is again reiterated by the guitar and, as you will see, the rolling locks of the somewhat cherub-like figure. All these things, including the forthcoming splash of bright blue shirt, are meant to drive home a subtle “Renaissance” feeling in the picture. For me, the skyscrapers in the background are a great addition to that visual theme.